The New York stock exchange has declared a test of Twitter's stock market debut a success as it tries to avoid the technical problems that marred Facebook's flotation last year.

While the NYSE often does testing on the weekend, this was the first time the exchange conducted a mock initial public offering (IPO) of shares. Traders from member firms gathered with NYSE staff on Saturday to run simulated buy and sell orders and test the flow of those orders and open the stock.

Twitter is expected to sell its shares some time before the end of November.

Marissa Arnold, a NYSE spokeswoman, said: "We are being very methodical in our planning for Twitter's IPO and are working together with the industry to ensure a world-class experience for Twitter, retail investors and all market participants."

Twitter will be the biggest technology IPO since Facebook went public in May 2012. While Nasdaq won Facebook's listing, one of the biggest flotations in years, the debut was hit with trading delays and order failures.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, the US regulator, later fined Nasdaq $10m (£6m), the largest sum ever levied against an exchange.

Twitter plans to sell 70m shares between $17 and $20 each for a possible valuation of $1.6bn. Shares will trade under the ticker TWTR.